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If anxiety is disrupting your life then you know how hard it can be to find the help that you need. The Anxiety and Agoraphobia Treatment Center is here to help you learn the skills that you need to overcome your fears and to live life to its fullest potential. We know how much fear and anxiety can overwhelm your ability to cope. We want to teach you how to restore your sense of hope and peace of mind. The problems that anxiety causes for you or your family are real, not imagined, and very treatable. The staff at the Anxiety and Agoraphobia Center can help you to live a life free from fear and the problems it causes.

Scientific research shows that these are some of the most treatable mental health problems when the proper cognitive behavioral and pharmacological treatments are applied. The Anxiety and Agoraphobia Treatment Center has many years of experience providing these well-researched cognitive behavioral treatments, the ones most likely to help you or your child overcome your disorder.

You are not alone. Anxiety disorders have been identified as the number one mental health problem affecting Americans. As many as 18.1% of adults and 13% of children may suffer from one or more of the anxiety disorders during their lifetime. Of those who suffer from an anxiety disorder, more are likely to be women or girls. Of those who suffer from one anxiety disorder, approximately 70% will meet criteria for an additional anxiety disorder in their lifetime. For many, their experience with anxiety begins during childhood or adolescence and lasts throughout their lifetime until they receive the proper treatment.

What is cognitive behavioral therapy? Cognitive behavioral therapies are a group of treatments that scientific research has shown best helps children, teens and adults learn how to overcome their problems. It uses scientific research about learning and various mental health disorders to develop methods to decrease unhelpful thought patterns and unhelpful behavior patterns. Cognitive behavioral therapists assume that all people learn in the same basic manner, such as trying to avoid unpleasant or painful situations or trying to do things that are immediately pleasant or reinforcing. Patients therefore are understood to be reasonable people who are responding in reasonable ways to variations in their moods, life circumstances or their body’s sensations. Those who suffer from mental health problems are never misunderstood as being the victim of subconscious desires to be “sick” or to avoid success. Research on various disorders indicates that those who suffer from anxiety or other disorders are correctly understood to be experiencing symptoms that have resulted from a complex set of genetic risk factors, learning experiences and critical events that have led to their disorder.

Cognitive behavioral therapists serve as a coach or teacher whose ultimate goal is to make you an expert at managing and overcoming your anxiety. They help you to identify the thought patterns, mistaken beliefs and unhelpful behavior patterns that maintain your disorder. They look to research about your disorder to guide their assessment and treatment of your key symptoms. They know that practice of important thinking skills and behavior skills is key to your success. This means that you will have home assignments in between sessions so that you can train your mind and body to respond differently to your fear and anxiety cues. If you are a parent, then you and your child will have special home practice. Cognitive behavioral therapists also know that it takes time and practice to become skilled at managing fear. This means that you will inevitably make mistakes. This, too, is part of the necessary learning process. We know that it is necessary for you and your child to become skilled at overcoming the inevitable mistakes that all patients and parents make so that you become resilient at handling the inevitable setbacks that come with recovery and relapse prevention.